Tektronix New TBS2000B "Affordable" Oscilloscope

[ResistorRob]

Link: https://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/tbs2000-basic-oscilloscope
Link: http://news.tektronix.com/2020-04-28-Tektronix-Extends-Performance-of-TBS2000-Product-Series-with-New-TBS2000B-Series-of-Digital-Storage-Oscilloscopes

The new TBS2000B Digital Storage Oscilloscope is great at performing an oscilloscope's most important jobs - looking at and measuring signals. See more with its bigger 9-inch display with 15 horizontal divisions for more time per screen and 5M record length to capture long time windows. Measure more with handy cursors and powerful 32 automatic measurements. Share more with Wi-fi connectivity and 100-BaseT Ethernet port. This affordable scope delivers the performance you need.

[ResistorRob]

Seems to me to be targeted at the education market. I'm in the market for a 4 channel 100MHz Osciiloscope. This Tek configured that way is $2,500 which if it had a touchscreen I would save my pennies and clear a spot on my bench for it. I think I'm going to go for the Siglent SDS 2000 Plus instead. It pretty much checks all the boxes. It's been a while since I looked into it's specs, but I think the only drawback to the Siglent was lack of 50 ohm terminals.

I think Tektronix has done a nice job improving their lineup with this and the 3/4/5 series. Just too pricey for me as a hobbyist.

[stafil]

Seems to me to be targeted at the education market. I'm in the market for a 4 channel 100MHz Osciiloscope. This Tek configured that way is $2,500 which if it had a touchscreen I would save my pennies and clear a spot on my bench for it. I think I'm going to go for the Siglent SDS 2000 Plus instead. It pretty much checks all the boxes. It's been a while since I looked into it's specs, but I think the only drawback to the Siglent was lack of 50 ohm terminals.

I think Tektronix has done a nice job improving their lineup with this and the 3/4/5 series. Just too pricey for me as a hobbyist.

Just curious, why would prefer this over the SDS2000+, and why would you prefer SDS2000+ over Rigol MSO5000?

[rsjsouza]

Wow... A TBS2074B costs 5 x DS1054Z for a marginal bandwidth gain and much less memory. Perhaps a better UI?
I would love to play with it, but I wouldn't hold my breath after my past experiences with their TDS3054B (which had a good UI but meager specs) and the demo units I played a bit: MDO 3 and MSO 4 (very slow UI).

[knapik]

I don't understand this unit. If its going to be tektronix, they can't compete on price, so they have to compete on software quality, but the UI is incredibly annoying to use. I think its mainly just for education (why they try to have a help screen to explain everything).

[tautech]

Seems to me to be targeted at the education market. I'm in the market for a 4 channel 100MHz Osciiloscope. This Tek configured that way is $2,500 which if it had a touchscreen I would save my pennies and clear a spot on my bench for it. I think I'm going to go for the Siglent SDS 2000 Plus instead. It pretty much checks all the boxes. It's been a while since I looked into it's specs, but I think the only drawback to the Siglent was lack of 50 ohm terminals.

I think Tektronix has done a nice job improving their lineup with this and the 3/4/5 series. Just too pricey for me as a hobbyist.

FYI, all Siglent 2000 series DSO's have 1M and 50 Ohm inputs, SDS2000, SDS2000X, SDS2000X-E and SDS2000X Plus. The 8" display SDS1000X range prior to SDS1000X-E also had 50 ohm inputs.

[nctnico]

Wow... A TBS2074B costs 5 x DS1054Z for a marginal bandwidth gain and much less memory. Perhaps a better UI?

Definitely. I use a TBS2000 at a customer every now and then. For looking at signals it is a very nice oscilloscope. Good display, nice crisp traces and just does what it should do. It could do with a touchscreen interface though. I keep pressing the screen instead of using the selector knob. I don't get why the TBS2000B series has less memory compared to the TBS2000 series though.

If you look at the documentation it is very clear that this oscilloscope is for educational use; it seems to be tailored to that with several features for teachers to add coursework and monitor progress.

[ResistorRob]

Just curious, why would prefer this over the SDS2000+, and why would you prefer SDS2000+ over Rigol MSO5000?

As a teenager I had a huge poster of a Tektronix oscilloscope hanging on my wall. (yes, I was a nerd, lol) so my goal was to own a Tektronix oscilloscope when I "grow up". Would be cool to finally check that off my bucket list.

A while back I made a list comparing the Siglent and Rigol with each other. Basically they both checked all the boxes except one feature item each. For the Rigol the lack of 50 ohm termination was the only thing missing from my wishlist. I can't remember what the SDS2000+ was lacking, but with both missing 1 feature I wanted and Siglent seeming to have quicker bug fixes and mixed reviews on whether Rigol fixed the dim screen issue with the MSO5000 had me thinking the Siglent was the way to go. Honestly I kinda like the black gimmicky look of the Rigol, but overall I think the Siglent has a slight edge. If I had another $1,000 in my budget I would definitely go for the Rohde & Schwarz. I love absolutely everything about that scope, but out of reach for me at the moment.

[snoopy]

Link: https://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/tbs2000-basic-oscilloscope
Link: http://news.tektronix.com/2020-04-28-Tektronix-Extends-Performance-of-TBS2000-Product-Series-with-New-TBS2000B-Series-of-Digital-Storage-Oscilloscopes

The new TBS2000B Digital Storage Oscilloscope is great at performing an oscilloscope's most important jobs - looking at and measuring signals. See more with its bigger 9-inch display with 15 horizontal divisions for more time per screen and 5M record length to capture long time windows. Measure more with handy cursors and powerful 32 automatic measurements. Share more with Wi-fi connectivity and 100-BaseT Ethernet port. This affordable scope delivers the performance you need.

Missing serial decoding, triggering, and DPO otherwise 9 inch screen is nice, Mark and Search is great and Tek probe interface is nice

Does anyone know how much they are ?

cheers

[Lemonizer]

Is it just me, but looking at the various declinaisions (from 70Mhz 2 channels to 200Mhz 4 channels, all with 2Gs/s sampling rate), is it horribly expensive ? I admit I rarely look at new scopes, but damn, I mean there's scopes that are 20 y/o on the market with similar specs (ok, maybe not similar UI/quality screen, some features too I guess) for a ton less, and electronics is an area that advances quite quickly. Especially when we look at Rigol/Siglent scopes, which are def not in the 'toy' area. Sure, it's a Tektronix, so I guess quality control is better, and after-sales service too (is it ?), but does it justify almost 3k for a 200Mhz, 4 channels 2Gs/s scope ?

[PixieDust]

Is it just me, but looking at the various declinaisions (from 70Mhz 2 channels to 200Mhz 4 channels, all with 2Gs/s sampling rate), is it horribly expensive ? I admit I rarely look at new scopes, but damn, I mean there's scopes that are 20 y/o on the market with similar specs (ok, maybe not similar UI/quality screen, some features too I guess) for a ton less, and electronics is an area that advances quite quickly. Especially when we look at Rigol/Siglent scopes, which are def not in the 'toy' area. Sure, it's a Tektronix, so I guess quality control is better, and after-sales service too (is it ?), but does it justify almost 3k for a 200Mhz, 4 channels 2Gs/s scope ?

I understand where you're coming from. Realistically I think it comes down to the question of, does it have warranty? Does it have support? The ebay stuff doesn't have this, so if you're a business, or if you want or need this, I guess you want the piece of mind that you'll not have any issues or at least won't have issues for long. With a used cheap ebay score, anything can go wrong at any time and it will take and indefinite amount of time for that problem to be fixed. + with ebay scopes you usually don't get calibration out of the box.

My ebay scope emitted magic smoke 5-10 minutes into it's use by me. Thankfully it was an easy fix (thanks to members of this forum), but who knows what you get?

Personally, I have enough things to do if my electronics equipment breaks. I can afford to poke around inside and ask smarter folks than me on forums in my spare time, or look for replacement gear getting listed. But if all I did was electronics, I would probably think a bit harder about collecting a few pennies and getting if not a top tier Tektronix or Keysight or R&S or whatever then at the very least the Chinese competitors. To be honest I don't know which way I would sway in that case  . Plus I'm a novice. So poking a probe somewhere it shouldn't be poked will be an expensive mistake which I'd much rather make on something more financially forgiving.

[rsjsouza]

100% agree on the eBay used market - the offers for warranty are few and far between, although you can still go for a Keysight used at their own eBay store and pay a lot less.

However, bucketing the Far East brands in the same scenario is not really fair.
Many people have their DS1054Z, SDS1104X-E for quite a number of years already. Both Rigol and Siglent are offering long warranties and have official distributor channels at least here in the US and in some countries of Europe.

I, for one, bought my Rigol DS4014 from Rigol directly with warranty and all... It has been going good for almost five years now.

At the entry level I mentioned before, at the list price you are paying for five DS1054Z (Rigol), GDS1054B (Instek) or four SDS1104X-E (Siglent). You can buy two oscilloscopes, leave one gathering dust as a backup and still have half the money in your pocket.

As Nico mentioned above, the educational market is probably the only one looking carefully at these offers. Sadly, they will teach people on a platform that is probably seen less and less on the real world.

[tv84]

Sadly, they will teach people on a platform that is probably seen less and less on the real world.

Agree but they will only if they buy them.

[nctnico]

As Nico.mentioned above, the educatiknal market is probably the only one looking carefully at these offers. Sadly, they will teach people on a platform that is probably seen less and less on the real world.

There is nothing odd or outlandish on a TBS2000. It is a digital oscilloscope like any other and it is a well polished product. My guess is that educational buyers get a very hefty discount and the list price is high on purpose to increase the perception of getting a great deal.

[Lemonizer]

I totally understand the warranty and after-sales service, but still, even taking those in accounts it seems really expensive. Maybe they simply price it within what people are ready to pay for it ? They surely do that. It's buisness afterall.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I totally understand the warranty and after-sales service, but still, even taking those in accounts it seems really expensive. Maybe they simply price it within what people are ready to pay for it ? They surely do that. It's buisness afterall.

The thing is, Tek focuses heavily on the edu market because that's where they are still somewhat strong. There's a a lot of staff at schools and universities which has been out of industry for a very long time (often decades) and of which many fondly remember Tektronix back from the analog days. That's something Tek wants to tap in.

It also helps them by exposing students (i.e. future engineers) to the Tektronix brand, which becomes more relevant as very few have grown up with the old image of Tektronix in their mind.

The TBS2000 Series has been specifically designed for that market. It's a basic scope, easy to operate, has extended help functions explaining literally everything, and fits in the classroom package which Tek offers which includes educational material and tools to give the instructor some control over the scopes. The reason why it has Tek VPI probe interfaces is simply because it allows students to use active probes and learn how to handle it.

It's not very attractive when compared to a standard entry-level scope, but for the market it has been designed it fits much better than any Rigol or Siglent scope (although Tek isn't the only vendor offering classroom packages, for example Keysight does the same, but didn't specifically design a scope around it).

As to the price, yes, it's silly. But this is by purpose. It can't be priced too low because it would be seen as watering down the brand image, and put the TBS2000 closer to other entry-level scopes which are cheaper. The inflated list price also allows Tek to give buyers big incentives over the list price, which makes it more attractive. And especially because a lot of edu staff has no idea about the T&M market, that prices in that segment have been shrinking or about new entrants like Rigol and Siglent, they see it as a good deal. Win-win

Outside education, there is little reason to buy a TBS2000 scope over anything else. The quality isn't better (and even Rigol and Siglent make pretty robust kit these days), Tek support is somewhere between poor and horrible, and the warranty is mostly the same around the various manufacturers.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I understand where you're coming from. Realistically I think it comes down to the question of, does it have warranty? Does it have support? The ebay stuff doesn't have this, so if you're a business, or if you want or need this, I guess you want the piece of mind that you'll not have any issues or at least won't have issues for long.

Warranty isn't much of an issue (and I buy a lot of used gear on ebay for business use). Most manufacturers like Keysight allow you to buy warranty (Keysight calls them "repair agreements") for 2nd hand kit as long as it's working fine and within the support period. And especially the Keysight ones are often surprisingly inexpensive.

With a used cheap ebay score, anything can go wrong at any time and it will take and indefinite amount of time for that problem to be fixed.

Ebay has buyer protection and if there's a problem within the first 45 days then you can send it back and get your money back (but this rarely happens if you're a bit careful). That gives enough time to get an instrument covered under a new warranty/repair agreement.

+ with ebay scopes you usually don't get calibration out of the box.

Sure but the price difference easily covers calibration, if that's even necessary (especially as scopes normally no longer need adjustment).

There also are many sellers who offer calibration for the stuff they sell, either included or for an additional fee.

My ebay scope emitted magic smoke 5-10 minutes into it's use by me. Thankfully it was an easy fix (thanks to members of this forum), but who knows what you get?

You could also just have returned it and get your money back

[snoopy]

Apparently Tek will replace this scope if it gets damaged and this is factored into the higher price. The cheaper brands won't do this because they will lose money. After sales support and service is what schools would be looking for in the long term rather than an initial cheap bargain basement price. Who knows what the untrained student could do to a sensitive piece of test equipment that a cautious seasoned user would try to avoid !!

[Wuerstchenhund]

Apparently Tek will replace this scope if it gets damaged

Where does Tek say that?

Because it doesn't say anything about this in the warranty terms:

https://www.tek.com/worldwide-page/worldwide-terms-and-conditions-sale

"12. WARRANTY
Tektronix warrants to Customer that each hardware Product will be free from defects in materials and workmanship for the period set forth in the applicable warranty statement, a copy of which may be obtained from Tektronix. If any such Product proves defective in materials or workmanship during the warranty period, Tektronix will repair or replace the defective Product as specified in the applicable warranty statement. Information concerning the warranty period and whether warranty service will be provided at a location other than a Tektronix service center is set forth in the applicable warranty statement.

THIS WARRANTY IS IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TEKTRONIX, ITS AFFILIATES AND ITS VENDORS, DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THEIR EQUIVALENTS IN ANY JURISDICTION.

TEKTRONIX' RESPONSIBILITY TO REPAIR OR REPLACE A DEFECTIVE PRODUCT IS THE SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY PROVIDED TO CUSTOMER FOR BREACH OF ANY WARRANTY PROVIDED BY TEKTRONIX."

It clearly states that the warranty only covers a defect in materials or workmanship, i.e. a manufacturing defects.

Tektronix is not going to replace a scope for free if it's got damaged by abuse or by accident. Not suree what makes you believe that this would be the case (maybe a bit too heavy on that Tek Kool-Aid there  )

and this is factored into the higher price. The cheaper brands won't do this because they will lose money.

I'm sorry but that's nonsense. Tek's warranty terms are exactly the same as everyone else's, even Rigol and Siglent provide the same coverage.

No manufacturer covers you dropping your scope or frying the inputs by accident. 

You might be able to get additional protection against accidental damage (as it exists for cell phones and other gadgets) but that will be separate insurance and come at additional cost.

After sales support and service is what schools would be looking for in the long term rather than an initial cheap bargain basement price.

Yes, definitely, if the scope is a tool that makes you money (and then you'd probably also want the level and quality of support to be more like Keysight and not at the level Tek is offering).

For a school or university less so, because they are not losing money if a scope goes down, and in this environment it makes more sense to keep one or two spares, even more so if they are inexpensive. Also, educational facilities who teach EEs usually have other instruments they might be able to use as a temporary fallback option. So they don't care as much about repair times and service levels as businesses do.

Who knows what the untrained student could do to a sensitive piece of test equipment that a cautious seasoned user would try to avoid !!

Well, yes, stuff can break in an educational setting, which is why the costs to replace equipment should be factored in.

It's also the reason why GW Instek has quite a strong hold in the edu market (and had so for many years), and there's more and more Rigol and Siglent stuff in educational labs, simply because they are inexpensive fit ever shrinking budgets which especially many schools are suffering from.

At the end of the day the question is what you want. The TBS2000 Series is made for Tek's classroom package, which is a complete package for educators which includes training materials. It saves educator's time because it's a ready-to-use package. It comes at a cost, though.

If your faculty can't afford that or prefer to use their own training materials and syllabuses then pretty much any basic scope will do fine. And if you're not going to use the Tek classroom package then other scopes will do equally well, while being cheaper.

[PixieDust]

You could also just have returned it and get your money back

I found out about this as a result of this experience. But I'm quite happy with the scope now that it's fixed anyway.

[snoopy]

Apparently Tek will replace this scope if it gets damaged

Where does Tek say that?

Because it doesn't say anything about this in the warranty terms:

https://www.tek.com/worldwide-page/worldwide-terms-and-conditions-sale

Boy you sure have it in for Tek haven't you

Yes it is extra but at least you can get it which is why schools might do a bulk buy on these scopes to get a good deal

https://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/tbs2000-basic-oscilloscope

https://info.tek.com/sso-total-protection.html

Total Product Protection
If We Can't Fix It, We'll Replace It!

Save time, money, and hassle with a multi-year Total Product Protection plan. Whether your equipment has been sidelined by accidental damage, electrostatic discharge (ESD), electrical overstress (EOS), or by normal wear and tear, your investment is protected with Total Product Protection.

As part of the Total Product Protection plan, instruments that are sent in for repair will also receive firmware updates (when desired), safety modifications and any other necessary adjustments to maintain your instruments at peak performance. 1

Click to see availability of coverage.

Accidents Happen
Whether you are in a controlled lab or on the floor of a manufacturing plant, your equipment is subject to a variety of hazards, including being dropped, damaged in transit, poorly stored or worse. Any one of these factors can lead to thousands of dollars in on-demand repair or replacement costs.

Unplanned expenses are reduced and your investment is protected when you choose Total Product Protection from Tektronix. Accidents happen, but we've got you covered.

The Ultimate Solution
3 or 5 year protection plan
Coverage from wear and tear
Covers damage caused by ESD or EOS events 1
Single point of contact to manage your service journey
Return shipping at no cost
Includes calibration (if necessary) and adjustments to published accuracy specifications

[Hydrawerk]

TBS2000B looks poor for the price! Is it even designed by Tektronix? LCD is good.
The search and mark feature is nice, but still:
-no video trigger
-no color gradation
-no function generator
-unspecified waveform update rate
-no serial decoding

Come on, it is year 2020.
Keysight DSOX2000 series is still the perfect scope for school use and it is still very OK for professional use.

[2N3055]

Problem with you is that, unlike Wuerstchenhund and Someone, you don't seem to know much about other scopes but keep on trumpeting how great Tektronix is.
You stated previously that 15 years old Agilent scope is still being sold. And you did so many such gafes, never admitting you were wrong.
To be able to compare two things you need to know both well..

And Wuerstchenhund arguments with Someone are not really connected with you or your posts, but are continuance of history between them, that originally resulted in Wuerstchenhund being banned here.

Let's summarise facts that are certain: 
- Tektronix made some of the greatest analog scopes. They are legend because of that. As kids we all dreamed about them..
- When scopes started going digital, things got fuzzy. Ever manufacturer had their vision how digital scope should look like and all of them made them different and all of them did some things worng and some things right
- With digital scopes being different animals, users and manufacturers started making different workflows for old analog ways of doing things. Some new practices deliberately wanted to keep old analog workflow on digital scope, some deliberately used completely new way of doing things, taking advantage of fact that digital scope could (and sometimes couldn't) do things old analog couldn't (or could).
- With years, because of all that difference in opinions, and user requirements, practice and experience, in some points manufacturers largely diverged in a way how they make scopes, and in some points they all started to do things same way as others because it works and user wants it. Which lead to fact that, sometimes, some functions that were supposed to be the same, worked differently on different platforms, with all the consequences of that to the user.
- In meantime, lots of new players came to arena, and now low cost market is ruled by B brands (with all the good and bad coming with it)
- A brands (and especially Tektronix, because of owner structure)  are not what they used to be. Sort of. Stuff is still pretty good quality, some of the standard support for some of the product clases is not as it used to be. Generally, to get great support you have to pay extra. In the olden days it wasn't so, but then stuff was really expensive and manufacturers could afford it. Keysight seems to be best in that regard.
- Of all the A-brands, Tektronix has worst price/performance/feature/benefit ratio. That doesn't mean their stuff is crap. It means it's overpriced for what it is .
- TBS2000B seems like a nice entry level scope. It defintely is not crap quality stuff. But as Wuerstchenhund  nicely said "Outside education, there is little reason to buy a TBS2000 scope over anything else. The quality isn't better (and even Rigol and Siglent make pretty robust kit these days), Tek support is somewhere between poor and horrible, and the warranty is mostly the same around the various manufacturers.".
That scope has literaly nothing on it. It has functionality of TDS200 series with more memory, larger sample rate, few more measurements and nice big colour screen. There is no even basic decoding, nothing. Literally any cheapest scope from Rigol, Siglent, Keysight, R&S, GW-Instek, even OWON, would allow you to do more things and be more useful to user. It is a "digitally emulated analog scope" in concept. That ship has sailed years ago. If you really want analog scope get real one. It's great fun.

[nctnico]

https://info.tek.com/sso-total-protection.html

But that is an insurance you pay extra for; not warranty  . And likely equipment damage is already covered by other insurances already in place at companies and universities.

[2N3055]

https://info.tek.com/sso-total-protection.html

But that is an insurance you pay extra for; not warranty  . And likely equipment damage is already covered by other insurances already in place at companies and universities.

Absolutely correct! You can get that kind of insurance and extended warranties from Keysight, at very good prices... But it's extra.
If you take a look at standard 5 yr warranty for Tek TBS2000 series and Keysight DSOX2000 there are few paragraphs in both that are "boilerplate" identical between the two...